


In calm or stormy weather

by Dissenter



Series: The four corners of the world [1]
Category: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea - Ursula K. Le Guin (Short Story), Daredevil (TV), The Birthday of the World and Other Stories - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Everyone Has Issues, F/F, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Polyamory, Romance, Sedoretu, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:51:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy and Matt always said that one day they'd make sedoretu together, but in this day and age that's easier said than done. They have the right people,<br/>There's Matt to give them purpose, a reason to act a reason to be, he is the fire that keeps them all going, and keeps them on the straight and narrow.<br/>Foggy makes them happy, makes the journey a thing to enjoy not endure, he is sunshine keeping them warm, and cheerful and whole, through all the troubles they face/<br/>Karen works to keep them alive, is the razor sharp knife that will do anything to keep them alive, hold them together, who knows there is no cost too high to protect those she cares for.<br/>Claire is the one who patches their wounds, who fixes them so that they can get up and carry on when Matt is torn and bleeding from his missions, when Foggy feels too worn down by the shadows to keep cracking jokes, when Karen cries at the nightmares of what she has done to keep them all safe, at what she’d do again if she had to. <br/>They have the right people but building a marriage takes work even if you do find the right people, especially when you're keeping secrets from each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To cheer one on the tedious way (Foggy)

**Author's Note:**

> Note for readers unfamiliar with the planet O:  
> Ki'O society is divided into two halves or moieties, called (for ancient religious reasons) the Morning and the Evening. You belong to your mother's moiety, and you can't have sex with anybody of your moiety.  
> Marriage on O is a foursome, the sedoretu — a man and a woman from the Morning moiety and a man and a woman from the Evening moiety. You're expected to have sex with both your spouses of the other moiety, and not to have sex with your spouse of your own moiety. So each sedoretu has two expected heterosexual relationships, two expected homosexual relationships, and two forbidden heterosexual relationships.  
> The expected relationships within each sedoretu are:  
> The Morning woman and the Evening man (the "Morning marriage")  
> The Evening woman and the Morning man (the "Evening marriage")  
> The Morning woman and the Evening woman (the "Day marriage")  
> The Morning man and the Evening man (the "Night marriage")  
> The forbidden relationships are between the Morning woman and the Morning man, and between the Evening woman and the Evening man, and they aren't called anything, except sacrilege.  
> It's just as complicated as it sounds, but aren't most marriages?[1]
> 
> Foggy and Claire are Morning  
> Matt and Karen are Evening

1\. To cheer one on the tedious way (Foggy)  
A marriage is made in the day. At least, so the saying goes, and for most people that may be true, but not for them. Foggy knows that their marriage belongs to the night.   
Foggy remembers back in college, the day when Matt said, all serious drunk, and honest in the way only people who are totally wasted can be, “If we ever make sedoretu, it will be together. You and me Foggy. Always.”   
And Foggy knew with the clarity that alcohol brings, that Mat was right. That they would be getting married together or not at all.

It had seemed like an abstract concept for years after that. Honestly, a lot of people never actually got to make sedoretu anymore, in this day and age it was hard enough finding one person to share your life with, let alone four, so most people took what they could get and were grateful, and tried not to think of what could be. But Matt had said it and the thought lingered with Foggy and he knew Matt wanted it, and he knew that he wanted it too. But for a long time it was all just abstract, Foggy didn’t have much luck with the ladies, and Matt had a pathological inability to make any of his relationships with morning women last more than a week. They had their night marriage, but the day eluded them. For a while Foggy had hoped that Marcie might become the evening wife, but she had flatly stated that she had no intention of ever forming a sedoretu, didn’t want to be tied down like that. After that the relationship had sort of fizzled out, and so the question of forming a sedoretu had remained an idle dream, and it was just him and Matt, night without day, and it was nearly enough. Nearly. So they laughed and joked around and didn’t think about what was missing, and they were happy, if not content.  
But then suddenly there was Karen, and Foggy really liked Karen. In a lot of ways she reminded him of Matt. Sweet but strong, with broken edges that she tried so hard to keep hidden but showed through anyway. And Matt saw it, he knew Matt saw it, and he knew Matt liked her too; not the way he did obviously that would just be wrong. But he obviously felt a certain kinship with her, trusted her. There was something there, and one night after far too many drinks Foggy asked Karen straight up, if slightly incoherent.  
“Heey Karen, so it’s like, I think you’re awesome, and pretty, and smart and just awesome you know? And I know Matt likes you too, and that’s like super important if we’re going to make sedoretu, and I don’t know if you feel the same way, but no-one’s ever fit the way you do, with us I mean, so I figured I’d ask, cause the worst thing you could do is say no right?” He paused for a moment. “Please don’t say no, I think I love you.” Karen just giggled.  
“Is that a yes? Please let that be a yes.” He gave her the puppy dog eyes.

“It’s a yes Foggy.” She grinned “Although that has got to be one of the most garbled love confessions I’ve ever heard. But yeah, I like you a lot, and I like Matt a lot too, and I could totally see us making sedoretu, but you do realize a sedoretu needs an evening wife right?”  
“Yeah. Matt has some issues with making his relationships with women last the week, so that’s kind of an ongoing project. I don’t suppose you know anyone?”   
“You two are literally the only people I know, so no. But we can keep our eyes open right?” He just smiled back at her. The world was full of possibilities.  
“Sounds like a plan.”

So then Foggy was thinking about sedoretu again, and how they were only one person short. So when he figured out Matt had a secret girlfriend he hoped, and he pushed, and he tried to encourage Matt to go for it, and when Matt said it ended, a little part of Foggy’s heart broke, even though he’d never met the girl, had no idea if she would fit with him and Karen because it still felt like a door slamming in his face. And so there were three of them, and somehow it was even further from enough than two had been. There was no balance to them now, and they were both so brittle that Foggy felt like the only thing holding them together, and it was too much for one man alone to do. He’d see Karen was hurting, and so he’d stay up with her all night and drink and joke, and try to shine a light in the darkness to banish the monsters, and then the next day Matt would walk into work, with a collection of bruises and bad excuses and wouldn’t tell Foggy anything, and it was too much for Foggy to hold together alone. Sedoretu were supposed to have four people, so that no one person was left trying to keep things steady. So that there was a balance. Foggy didn’t want to lose either of them but three people could not hold a balance, and he could feel it all slipping away. The night marriage he’d thought was rock solid, based on years of love and friendship and shared history and the tentative, new, evening marriage, which was so alive with possibilities.

The trouble with the night is it holds too many secrets. Meeting Claire had been the only good thing about finding Matt bloody on the floor in the vigilante costume. All the years of understanding and trust suddenly thrown into doubt. The man he loved was bleeding out on the floor and he had no idea whether to be angry or terrified, and all he could think was how long? How many lies? Was any of it real? But under the anger ran a thread of please, please, please, don’t die, you promised we could make sedoretu, you promised it would always be you and me, I love you, don’t die. And the rest of that night was a blur tainted with the smell of blood.

Claire was the one good thing to come out of that night, now he had met her he could see how she could have fitted into their sedoretu, if things hadn’t been so screwed up. He could see how her stubborn, no nonsense practicality could have kept them all grounded, how her blaze of good intentions would have blended with theirs and made all of them stronger. He could see her as his morning sister. Claire liked him too he could tell. Thought he was funny and sweet, respected his loyalty in helping Matt even after this betrayal. They could have made sedoretu, and he wanted to blame Matt for fucking it all up, but he knew it wasn’t just Matt. It was the whole bloody world. How can anyone be expected to hold together when the world is falling apart? And then suddenly it’s not just bittersweet, not just a missed opportunity.  
“I didn’t realize Matt was trying to form a sedoretu.” She said, after Matt was safely patched up and tucked in. “He’d never talk about himself, took him ages to even tell me his name. I thought he just wanted a casual relationship, just him and me.” And something in the way she said it made Foggy think that maybe things weren’t beyond salvaging. So he spoke to her.

“There’s an evening woman. Karen, she works with us, and I think we could…” And she doesn’t reject the unspoken invitation.   
“What’s she like?” She asked and he wished it weren’t so easy to hope with Claire, he just met her and yet he could see a future side by side with her as his sister, helping to hold their beautiful, broken loves together. Sympathy, a listening ear, support, and comfort for each other when things were hard, and he wanted it far too much so he snapped at her.  
“I thought you ended it with Matt.” He felt guilty as soon as he said it but he didn’t try and take it back because he needed to know.  
“I thought it was just him and me, and I couldn’t… I like Matt, a lot, but I couldn’t face waiting alone at home for the day he didn’t come back. I didn’t want to have to face that grief alone.” She looked at him gently. “You would though, wouldn’t you?” And that’s the heart of it. She knows now, that there’s a sedoretu to be made, that the nights spent waiting up for Matt she wouldn’t be alone in the dark. He could see, she was as drawn by the possibilities as he was.  
“It’s been me and Matt for a long time. We always said, if we ever made sedoretu it would be together.” She looked at him consideringly.  
“I could see you as my moiety brother.” So they sat together on Matt’s couch watching the sunrise, and he smiled and joked and made her laugh, and she agreed to meet Karen, and the morning seemed less lonely than it had ever been.


	2. To lift one if one totters down (Claire)

Claire is a nurse. She likes to fix people. That’s what first drew her to Matt, because if anyone needed fixing it was him.

It started out physical. Knife wounds, and cracked bones, and a man she found half dead in a dumpster. Then he woke up and she found out that his soul was just as battered and bleeding as his body, and she wanted to help. She wanted to help but it wasn’t until she saw his strength that she started to fall in love with him. The will that made him get up and keep fighting, when he could barely breathe for the pain, when all he could taste was iron at the back of his throat, when any sane man would pass out in exhaustion. He’d keep fighting because he believed it was the right thing to do. She asked him once what drove him to do what he did. He just said.

“I can’t not. If I know someone needs help, and I have the power to give it to them, how can I just walk by on the other side? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could.” The fact he could say that with such sincerity, would have won over the most bitter and careworn of cynics.

It was only after she’d already fallen for him, that she began to think that maybe he was too broken for any one person to stitch together. It scared her. He was just a man, alone against the death of a city, and one day he wouldn’t come back. She could see a future stretched out before her, waiting up by the phone alone, with a boxful of bandages and a heart full of fear, praying that this wouldn’t be the night he bled out on her floor, and knowing that most likely he’d die in an alley somewhere and she’d never know for sure.

She didn’t want to face that grief alone, and she had no idea where to even begin forming a sedoretu. So she rejected Matt’s subtle advances. Told him she’d be his nurse but nothing more, and her heart broke more than a little as she said it but it was nothing to the pain she would have felt if she’d let herself get too close, if she’d let them be everything they could have been. He wouldn’t push, he knew what he’d be asking her to risk, and he was too bound by principle to demand others sacrifice for his sake. But she knew he was disappointed, had been hoping, and she wished it could have been more than just the two of them. If there had been someone to sit beside her as she waited, someone to promise it’d all be ok, she could have kept vigil forever.

Meeting Foggy was a revelation. Suddenly Matt’s subtle hints and flirting took on a whole new dimension. He hadn’t been sounding her out for a casual affair at all. He was looking for a third, or maybe even a fourth, trying to build something that could stand against the slow worsening of life in Hell’s Kitchen. And Foggy was sweet, and kind, and comforting in a way that was like no-one else she’d ever met. And he sat up with her all through that long night, as she stitched Matt up, and after when Matt was breathing was so shallow they didn’t dare sleep, and he made her smile even while the two of them were still covered in the blood of the man they loved. By the time morning broke she had agreed to meet Karen, and while her fear for Matt was still an ever present lump of ice next to her heart, it was now softened, wrapped in the warmth of Foggy’s companionship.

Foggy had moved quickly setting up her date with Karen. When she had asked him why the rush he’d just said with a grin “I didn’t want to give you time to come to your senses.” And it might have been a joke but there was enough truth in it that Claire went along with it.

“So what’s she like anyway?” was her one question, because despite herself she really wanted this to work, and that depended largely on the impression she left on Karen, and information in advance could only help.

“She’s… well, she’s brave, determined to do the right thing you know? She can’t just let things go when she knows they’re wrong, she cares too much about people. In some ways she’s a lot like Matt really, except that she’s a lot more fragile, or maybe just not as good at hiding the fragility, it’s hard to tell. I think you’ll like her.”

He’s right. Claire does like Karen, a lot. They met at Josie’s on the basis that alcohol can overcome a lot of awkwardness, and before long they were gossiping and joking together like they’d known each other forever. They told each other silly anecdotes from their wilder teenage years, and dared each other to do shots of some of Josie’s more esoteric drinks and as they got drunker they plotted elaborate practical jokes to play on the unsuspecting boys.

It was about midnight when the mood shifted. Karen suddenly turning quiet and contemplative, staring into her glass of eel juice like it might suddenly become sentient and start trying to communicate (in Claire’s opinion that is actually not outside the realms of possibility). She looked so sad that Claire had to ask her what was wrong.

“I don’t want to go home.” Karen confided, still staring intently at her glass.

“Why not?” Claire

“It’s still there you know. The blood. I tried to wash it out, and it mostly worked but I know it’s still there. That bit of carpet is just a slightly different shade to the rest of it now. I can’t sleep there anymore, when I do I dream that the walls are painted with blood.” Karen gave a broken little smile that made Claire want to bundle her up in a blanket and chase away the nightmares. It reminded her of what Foggy had said, that in some ways Karen was a lot like Matt. Impulsively she kissed her, soft and gentle, a promise of not aloneness. Karen kissed back, fiercer, desperate with something half like desire and half like fear.

They didn’t go back to Karen’s. There’s blood on Claire’s carpet too, Matts blood, but somehow that felt more like a talisman of protection than the silent stain of accusation that marks Karen’s flat, so it was Claire’s that they went back to. Every fierce soothing touch, every whispered promise that night, confirmed what they’d already started thinking, and when they woke the next morning still tangled in each other’s arms Claire said it out loud.

“Will you get married with me.” And Karen had winced at the pain in her head, but had still managed to answer with a smile.

“Yes, if we can get Matt and Foggy to agree.” Claire just snorted.

“As if they could refuse two amazing beautiful ladies like us.” Karen’s answering grin brightened the whole day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so it turns out Claire is harder to write than Foggy, I think this came out all right. Matt's chapter up next.


	3. To fetch one if one goes astray (Matt)

 To fetch one if one goes astray

The night holds too many secrets. Matt knows this is true. If he were ever to make Sedoretu it would be with Foggy, and he has told him as much, but how can a marriage be built on so many lies. He sabotaged his own relationships with morning women. He was nice to them of course but he maintained a distance, it was hard enough lying to Foggy, he can’t imagine the strain of keeping these secrets from a whole marriage. So he kept them at arm’s length, and tried not to be too relieved when Foggy had as much trouble maintaining relationships with women as he did.

Marci was a close call, for a while he was worried she and Foggy were getting serious, and he knew she didn’t like him much. It’s never good for a marriage if moiety siblings are at odds, and he’s sure that sooner or later, he and Marci would have ended up at odds, leaving Foggy and the hypothetical morning wife trapped in the middle. He was relieved when Marci made it clear she was not prepared to make that kind of commitment.

Karen was different. From the moment they first met, her voice was like an echo of his own. All pain and guilt and loss of trust. The voice of someone who has found that the world is a cruel place, where bad things happen to good people, and no-one can say why. He can hear it all in her voice, and the spaces between words, a fresher, more exposed version of the things he can hear in his own voice, right down to the secrets and half-truths betrayed by her heartbeat. As time went on they only became more alike, and while he hadn’t told her about his vigilante activities, he had a feeling that if she knew she would understand in a way no-one else could. He kept secrets from her, but he knew she was also keeping secrets from him, her work with Ben Urich, the investigation into her old bosses, seeing her as his moiety sister was all too easy.

She’d raised the topic first. Had said…

“So Foggy, asked me if I wanted to make a Sedoretu.”

“Yeah?” He had frozen in panic, knowing Foggy liked her had been one thing that much had been painfully obvious. Foggy actually asking her to marry them was more of a shock. He knew he shouldn’t say yes, shouldn’t drag anyone else into his mess, but now that the subject had been raised he found that he didn’t really want to say no.

“Yeah. And since it’s a given that you’d be the evening husband in any marriage involving Foggy, I figured I should probably ask you for your thoughts on the subject.” Something in her forced-casual tone, made it impossible for Matt to just brush her off. She deserved an honest answer. Even if he lied about everything else, he owed her the truth in this. He thought about it, thought about the lies and the secrets that should have no place in a marriage, thought about Karen, who out of all the evening women he’d met might be the only one who would understand why he kept them, and he decided to take a chance.

“I wouldn’t object to having you as my evening sister.” And he smiled, and even without being able to see it he’d known she was smiling back. So he ignored the twisting sensation in his gut that came from the guilt of knowing he’d just gone a step further in building a marriage on deception.

 

Matt had never meant to lie to Foggy. He loves Foggy more than anything else in the world. He loves his voice, he loves his bad jokes, he loves the way that Foggy can brighten up even the darkest days. He loves how even when Foggy is tired, or miserable, or frustrated he still makes the time to cheer up people who are even more down than he is. He never wanted to lie to Foggy, but the secrets just got away from him. It started with habit. Stick had drilled into him that he was not to tell anyone about his enhanced senses, and by the time he’d realised Foggy was different, he had no idea how to tell him. How was it supposed to go?

“Hey Foggy, guess what, I’ve been lying to you since the moment we met, as it turns out I’m only technically blind I actually have this weird radar sense thing which sort of counts as superpowers, and I’m a ninja. Oh and by the way I’m kinda in love with you.” Like that was ever going to go down well. So he kept putting it off, and the more he put it off the worse it got. Then he became a vigilante and he suddenly had a justification that he could use to rationalise it to himself. He was doing it to keep Foggy safe, to protect him from the man in the mask’s enemies, and he knew it was bullshit, but by that point he just couldn’t face the look on Foggy’s face when he realized Matt had been lying to him for so long. Then Foggy had found him bleeding out on the floor, and there was no more time for secrets.

Meeting Claire had been an honest to God miracle. Not just because if he hadn’t he would probably have died in that dumpster, but because for the first time in years, he could be totally honest with someone. He didn’t have to lie, she already knew everything. She knew his secrets before she knew anything else about him. It felt good, and as they grew closer he started to wonder if maybe Claire could help him unpick the tangled mess of secrets he’d been keeping from Foggy. If maybe he could get rid of the sick guilty feeling that lurked in his stomach and flared up whenever he thought about how much he was hiding.

It was more than that though, because Claire was amazing in her own right. Solid, and principled, and brave, he’d never met anyone quite like her. She’d been thrown into a situation that would cause most people to fall apart in panic, and instead she’d kept a cool head, chosen her side, and stuck to it, she’d saved his life and hadn’t even asked for his name. In some ways she was like Foggy, she cared about people, wanted to help them, but where Foggy was a flurry of chaotic good intent, Claire was all practical common sense, and professionalism, and if you tear those stitches out again I’ll use the _big_ needle. So he’d tried to connect with her, to form a relationship beyond doctor and patient, hoping that maybe if it worked, he could introduce her to Foggy. She’d said no. She’d said that she couldn’t be more than the person who patched him up, and honestly he couldn’t blame her. For all his hopes, he’d known it was a lot to ask of anyone. He knew that one night he was going to get hurt too badly for Claire to fix, too badly for anyone to fix, and it wasn’t fair to ask someone to love a man who they knew was going to die. It hadn’t been fair to ask it of Foggy, and it certainly wasn’t fair to ask it of Claire. He knew that nothing short of violent amputation would separate him from Foggy now, but if Claire wanted to get out while she still could, that was a perfectly reasonable decision. He just wished…

He asked Foggy to call Claire, after the discovery. What else could he have done? The only other option was the hospital, and questions he didn’t dare answer. He’d asked Foggy to call Claire and then he’d passed out. It seemed like the thing to do. At least he’d got his wish, Foggy was going to meet Claire, if only it had been under better circumstances.

Waking up had been… unexpected. Not because he hadn’t been expecting to wake up, although that had been a possibility, but because of what he sensed when he woke. Foggy and Claire’s heartbeats, too close together for them to have been doing anything other than cuddling up next to each other on the sofa. He smiled gently. That in itself was almost worth the long overdue explanations he knew he was going to have to give. Foggy would be angry, but he and Claire had met and liked each other, and he was sure that between Karen’s dedication and Claire’s common sense they could hold their fragile new Sedoretu together until the hurt and bitterness faded. Foggy would be angry, but he wouldn’t just walk away. They were part of something stronger than that now, together they made a solid whole. Foggy to brighten up their days, Karen to remember what matters most, Claire to fix them all up and keep the going, and him, Matt. The man in a mask, the man with a mission, and he suspects that without them he would lose himself to abstract principles. With them he knows that they will always bring him back from the edge, and that alone is enough to tell him that Stick was wrong, he wasn't stronger alone, no-one is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just Karen's chapter to go now. Although I may do another story for Fisk, Wesley, and Vanessa


	4. To strengthen whilst one stands (Karen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karen's chapter, i'm quite pleased with this one even if I did have to recycle some dialogue.

  1.        To strengthen whilst one stands. (Karen)



Karen was used to being alone. She was used to it but even so, sitting in that cell, with traces of blood still caught under her fingernails, brought home just how alone in the world she was. She had the right to a phone call, but who would she call, there was o-one waiting up at home for her, no lovers, no family, not even a roommate, to wonder where she’d gone, and that more than anything terrified her.

When Foggy and Matt burst into her life, rescued her, believed in her, it was like a hand reaching out to save her from the abyss, and all she could do was grab tight and not let go. She didn’t ever want to be that alone again. Not ever, not for anything, so she clung to the two of them, offered to help them, work for free, anything for them to not leave her alone again.

It wasn’t long before it became more than desperation and fear of being alone. They made her _happy_ in a way that she hadn’t felt for such a long time. They felt right. Foggy was warm and bright and kind, and he soothed the cut glass edges of her soul in a way that nothing non-chemical had ever done before. That night he stayed out with her till morning, because she couldn’t face the bloodstains on her floor, when they’d talked and joked and drunk until the nightmares were a million miles away, that was when she first thought she might be falling in love with Foggy.

Matt and Foggy were obviously together of course. It was plain to anyone with eyes or without that they had their night marriage already set in stone. It was in the way they talked and bantered, the way they moved around each other, subconsciously adjusting for each other’s presence. In the way Foggy would joke more on some days as a result of some invisible cue from Matt, that told him Matt was having a bad day, in the way Matt would come in late sometimes with a box of the doughnuts Foggy had been craving for days. Karen didn’t mind. It wasn’t like she had any evening brothers to get married with.

Honestly Matt was probably a perfect match for her. She could see it sometimes, that faint brittleness behind his smile, the days he didn’t bother to shave, the way sometimes he’d just go quiet. She could see it in him not because of the long association Foggy had, but because it was a shadowed reflection of what she saw in herself. And she could also see the strength in him, the determination to fight for what he believed in, the fire that had led him to walk out of Landman and Zack, to set up a small office in a bad neighbourhood, to stand up for people like her with nowhere else to turn. In some ways they were too much alike, and in others she wished they were more alike. It was at least partly because of Matt that she refused to back down on Union Allied, because she knew that he wouldn’t have, because she was tired of being afraid of letting them win, because he had shown her that if you fought sometimes you could win. Even if none of them had said anything, she already considered him her evening brother, Foggy made her happy, but Matt made her strong, and she would do anything to keep them safe by her side.

It wasn’t quite a Sedoretu though, and none of them knew any suitable morning women, so when Foggy brought it up she was surprised. She hadn’t realised they were working towards the full thing, she’d just assumed they were doing what most people did and making do with what they could find. Admittedly Foggy was slightly drunk at the time of the confession, but in Karen’s opinion that just added to the adorability of the situation.

“Heey Karen, so it’s like, I think you’re awesome, and pretty, and smart and just awesome you know? And I know Matt likes you too, and that’s like super important if we’re going to make sedoretu, and I don’t know if you feel the same way, but no-one’s ever fit the way you do, with us I mean, so I figured I’d ask, cause the worst thing you could do is say no right?” He paused for a moment. “Please don’t say no, I think I love you.” And it was ridiculous, and romantic, and adorable, and the idea of making a sedoretu carried Karen back to a thousand happily ever after stories from her childhood, and so she giggled in surprised delight.

“Is that a yes? Please let that be a yes.” He gave her the puppy dog eyes, and honestly Karen couldn’t imagine saying no to those eyes, even if she hadn’t wanted to say yes.

“It’s a yes Foggy.” She grinned “Although that has got to be one of the most garbled love confessions I’ve ever heard. But yeah, I like you a lot, and I like Matt a lot too, and I could totally see us making sedoretu, but you do realize a sedoretu needs a morning wife right?” It was like opening the door on a thunderstorm just talking about it, she’d never realized how much she’d wanted it until it seemed possible, she supposed that was just further proof of how deeply Disney had worked its way into the nation’s subconscious. It just hit home, the fact that they were only one person short of a full marriage, that there was a fairy-tale ending within their grasp. Foggy was still talking.

“Yeah. Matt has some issues with making his relationships with women last the week, so that’s kind of an ongoing project. I don’t suppose you know anyone?” She bit back a laugh that was nowhere near as bitter as it would have been three days ago as she said.

“You two are literally the only people I know, so no. But we can keep our eyes open right?” He just smiled back at her. The world was full of possibilities.

“Sounds like a plan.” And it was. Both she and Foggy had been curious about Matt’s “Hottie McBurnerphone,” but when he’d said it ended they’d both known better than to push, even if Karen did feel a little cheated. But then suddenly it turned out it wasn’t as oer as Matt had led them to believe, and according to Foggy the whole breakup had been due to Matt being a closed-mouthed idiot who hadn’t told the poor girl they were trying to form a Sedoretu. And then he’d asked if Karen was willing to meet her, and of course she’d said yes, and before long they were sitting down to drinks at Josie’s, and it turned out that Claire was every bit as hot as she and Foggy had theorised. After many drinks, over the course of which Karen discovered Claire was a nurse, had met Matt because he’d been an idiot (apparently she’d have to ask Matt himself if she wanted the details), was allergic to cats, and thought the healthcare system as it stood was an outrage against human decency. It was a wonderful date, up until Karen started to get morose.

“I don’t want to go home.” She stared into the bottom of her glass like it might hold some kind of answer.

“Why not?” Claire looked so devastatingly sympathetic, that Karen just wanted to curl up in her arms and never leave. She hiccupped slightly as she continued talking.

“It’s still there you know. The blood. I tried to wash it out, and it mostly worked but I know it’s still there. That bit of carpet is just a slightly different shade to the rest of it now. I can’t sleep there anymore, when I do I dream that the walls are painted with blood.” Claire looked at her with concern and Karen half though that she’d scared her away but instead she leaned in and kissed her, soft and gentle. A promise of not aloneness that sent Karen wild with something half like desire and half like fear.

They go back to Claire’s, it’s not a particularly nice flat, and Karen’s spent enough time looking at bloodstains to recognise the marks on her couch, but somehow that doesn’t bother her. She remembers that Claire is a nurse, and plenty of people in the ‘Kitchen can’t afford a hospital, and the blood seems a mark of healing instead of guilt. They make love with a passion and certainty that Karen had not even felt with Foggy and so next morning when Claire had asked…

 “Will you get married with me?” Karen had smiled through the hangover and told her…

“Yes, if we can get Matt and Foggy to agree.” It was Matt and Foggy that had brought them together, she couldn’t imagine them saying no at this stage.

“As if they could refuse two amazing beautiful ladies like us.” And Claire’s smile was like the sunrise as she said it. It promised Karen she’d never be alone again, that she would always have the people she loved and Karen knew in that moment she’d do anything to protect them.

Later, as she stared down the man who threatened her loved ones, her Sedoretu with a gun in her hand, she thought of that smile. She thought of Foggy’s laughter, and Matt’s wry grin, and Claire’s brave determined smile, and she pulled the trigger. She knew it was worth every one of the nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok this story is finished. Is anyone interested in a tragic sequel starring Fisk, Wesley, and Vanessa?

**Author's Note:**

> I love the sedoretu idea. There needs to be more fanfic of it. So I wrote some. It's Daredevil, because i've been binge watching it, and those guys are just awesome in all sorts of polyamorous relationships


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